Friday, April 11, 2008

R7 Five Magic Minutes

Avispa Fukuoka 1 - 5 FC Gifu (ht 1-0)

Unbelievable! In the space of five minutes FC Gifu who were trailing Fukuoka 0-1 put on four goals to race out to a 4-1 lead that ultimately led to their third win of the season. The game was played under sunny skies in front of 7ooo spectators at Level5 Stadium, Fukuoka.Fukuoka scored first in the 18th minute when some clever interplay between the forwardswas finished off by MF Hokuto Nakamura who slotted the ball nicely past the keeper. FC Gifu were playing more positively with the ball that they had but Fukuoka looked the more dangerous team near the goal. The half ended at 1-0.

In the second half though things changed dramatically as Gifu FW Atsushi Katagiri bagged a double in the 56th and 57th minute to give the lead to the visitors. As if they were not content with this, FW Kazumasa Takagi also snuck in a goal in the 59th, followed by a goal to Takashi Umeda in the 61st. Amazingly Gifu had turned a one point deficit into a three point lead within five minutes. These goals were produced by good attacking play by Gifu, but at the same time they were also helped by defensive misses by Fukuoka. With 30 minutes remaining both teams created chances but it was Gifu again who added another point to their tally with a well taken goal by Takashi Umeda, who also bagged a double. The game ended with FC Gifu 5-1 winners.

For Gifu the confidence received in beating Fukuoka away by four goals will be enormous. They played well defensively and scored their five goals from just ten shots at goal. On the one negative note, they allowed in a goal again, meaning that they have yet to keep a clean sheet come full-time this season.For Fukuoka, well what can we say? They lost last week away 1-3 to Tokushima and then at home 1-5 today to Gifu. Obviously they're going through a bad patch and will have lost confidence particularly in the last two games. Defense is their main problem at the moment and they will be looking to fix that ASAP.

A great day for Gifu. Katagiri got his first goals of the 2008 season, FC Gifu their third win of the 2008 season. Looking good boys. Otsukaresamadeshita!

endo, I don't think that the Gifu boys knew what happened either! It was a freakish five minutes!I don't think anyone would have imagined a 5-1 scoreline to Gifu...

vendo, how right you are! It definitely makes the J2 are very interesting league this year.It will be intriguing to see whether teams like Gifu can keep up this strong challenge throughout the season though...fingers crossed!

Wbat an awesome game! Some really nice goals scored there as well, I must say. Now let's hope Gifu keep the momentum going with a solid performance next week. If they use their chances as well as they did now, that'll be no problem I'd say.

Absolutely amazing stuff :-) Gifu impressed in the "tv-shown" match against Tokushima a few rounds ago, and it seems that wasn't just a one-off!"

Only Sanfrecce ( and to some extent Sagan ) have impressed among the front-runners, and if continues like this who knows what might happen :) will we see one of the smaller teams snatch a top 3 position and possibly be promoted? as it looks now, neither Cerezo,Vegalta, Avispa,Kofu or Yokohama seems capable of doing it so...

cheers guys,I'm sure that they'd win next week too if they had a shot ratio of 5 goals from 10 goals like they did in this game!Anyway, the thing about FC Gifu at the moment is that they're not playing GREAT football, they're just doing the basics right and keeping the mistakes down. That's what some of the bigger clubs aren't doing right now.

And, it would be great to see FC Gifu push for a play-off spot but probably realistically they will teeter off at some stage and the experience and stamina of clubs like Cerezo and Vegalta should start to shine through...

But it's good to see them playing well and proving themselves worthy of being in the J2 right now. As always, looking forward to the games ahead!